ALBANY (NY)
Troy Record
By: Robert Cristo, The Record 05/19/2005
ALBANY - Allegations of sexual abuse were leveled Wednesday against a priest from Holy Cross Church who also spent nearly 20 years at Sacred Heart Church in Watervliet.
Thomas Clements III, 44, of Albany, claims that Rev. Daniel J. Maher raped him twice in the early 1970s during weekend trips to a Saratoga Lake camp.
Clements was 12 years old when the alleged incidents took place, and said he first met Maher when he was an altar boy at St. Frances de Sales church in West Albany, where Maher spent 10 years as a priest before moving to Sacred Heart in 1974.
Clements' attorney, John Aretakis, filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County this week.
Clements, an Albany native, said the media attention surrounding clergy sex abuse cases over the past few years reignited his pain.